Thesis Titles : Horizon CDT

Horizon CDT PhD Theses

Below is a collection of PhD theses from the 124 Horizon CDT students who have successfully passed their vivas.

Currently, around 26 students are in the process of studying or submitting their theses. As new theses are completed and vivas passed, we will continue to update this page with additional titles.

Links to the full e-theses are available through the University of Nottingham repository, allowing you to explore the research in more detail.

Congratulations to our alumni on their incredible achievements!

Last updated: 05 December 2025

2021 Cohort – 3 alumni

Dr Gabrielle Hornshaw – Biometric Recognition of the Hand in Unconstrained Images
Dr Gregor Milligan – Understanding Loneliness Through Data-Driven Approaches: From Practitioner Insights to Algorithmic Detection
Dr Nasser Alkhulaifi – Automated Feature Engineering, AutoML, and Decision-Focused Learning for Improved Energy Consumption Forecasting

2020 Cohort – 10 alumni

Dr Charlotte Lenton – Reimagining Constraints and Accessibility in the Rail Sector: Late Technology Adopters in Increasingly Digitalised Travel Environments
Dr Dan Heaton – Agency, Trust and Blame in Decision-Making Algorithms: An Analysis of Twitter Discourses
Dr Guido Salimbeni – Decoding AI Art: From Motivation to Manifestation
Dr James Williams – A Framework for Curating Personalised Leisure Walking Experiences
Dr Joanne Parkes – The Psychology of excessive ‘Viewing on Demand’: How might platforms be designed to optimise user autonomy of VOD consumption?
Dr Joshua Duvnjak – The Use of Personalisation within Manufacturing Environments
Dr Kathryn Baguley – Development and Evaluation of a framework to support accountability in Automated Decision-Making (ADM)
Dr Muhammad Suhaib Shahid – Towards Vocal Tract MRI Synthesis from Facial Signals Using External to Internal Correlation Modelling
Dr Rachel Saunders – How can we use narrative hospitality to understand rights
Dr Ruairi Blake – On the Role and Use of Information in Ethical Consumerism

2019 Cohort – 11 alumni

Dr Ana Rita Pena – A consumer centred investigation of differentially private risk assessment models in consumer credit
Dr Angela Thornton –Our futures in mind uploading: public perceptions and narratives.
Dr Cecily Pepper – Exploring the impact of social media on care-experienced young people’s self-view and mental wellbeing: implications for social media design and policy
Dr Christine (Li) Cain – Exploring the potential of personalized VR bodily learning systems
Dr Edwina Abam – Exploring fairness and transparency in algorithmic decision-making systems in credit scoring
Dr Elizabeth Dolan – Diagnosing disease with shopping data
Dr Ephraim Luwemba – Testing for Transparency
Dr Henry Cope – Accelerating space life sciences via astronaut omics collection and integrated analyses
DrMichael Harmson-Silvestri – Exploring the police response to technology-driven changes in online child sexual exploitation offending.
Dr Rebecca Gibson – Using digital layers to evoke nostalgia in hybrid gifting.
Dr Vincent Bryce – Exploring the Business Case for Responsible Research and Innovation

2018 Cohort – 11 alumni

Dr Harriet Cameron – Outdata-ed museums: creating ethical and transparent data collection processes in museums.
Dr Jimiama Mafeni Mase – Context-aware intelligent decisions: online assessment of heavy goods vehicle driving risk.
Dr Kadja Manninen – Exploring digital business models in performing arts through a dynamic capabilities lens.
Dr Luke Skarth-Hayley – Attention-Driven Scenography
Dr Matthew Yates – Accurate detection methods for GAN-generated earth observation images using expert visual perception.
Dr Natalie Leesakul – Robotics and the law: exploring the relationship between law and technology adoption challenges in the case of collaborative industrial embodied autonomous systems (Cobots).
Dr Neeshé Khan – A human centric approach to unintentional insider threat: development of a sociotechnical framework.
Dr Oliver Miles – Interactions with Valuescapes: Applications of Extra-Sensory Values in Everyday Coffee Personalisation
Dr Peter Boyes – Negotiating the truth: exploring the influence of metadata in place-related group decision making.
Dr Shazmin Majid – Integrating the use of sensing technology to detect early warning signs of relapse for those with lived experience of bipolar disorder.
Dr Stanislaw Piasecki – Complying with the GDPR when vulnerable people use smart devices.

2017 Cohort – 9 alumni

Dr Velvet Spors – Caring systems: making relational, gameful self-care technologies for mental health.
Dr Feng Zhou – Generative co-design & non-planar additive manufacture of aesthetic prostheses.
Dr Joe Strickland – What Opportunities For Storytelling Might Near-future Technologies Offer Creatives, And How Might Personal Data Affect This?
Dr Jose Gustavo Berumen Salazar –Digitally enhanced consumer packaged goods: a data-inspired ideation approach.
Dr Keerthy Kusumam – Multimodal analysis of depression in unconstrained environments.
Dr Laurence Cliffe – Audio augmented objects and the audio augmented reality experience.
Dr Serena Midha – Understanding mental workload in everyday life and its role in the future of personal informatics.
Dr Symeon Dionysis – Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for supply chain traceability: industry considerations and consumer preferences.
Dr Vanja Ljevar – Exploring the impact of socio-cognitive factors on adherence to asthma medication using traditional mixed methods and machine learning.

2016 Cohort – 6 alumni

Dr Abigail Fowler – Human performance in rail: determining the potential of physiological data from wearable technologies.
Dr Ahmed Al-Talabany – Using Personal Data to Configure Navigation Support for Blind and Partially Sighted People
Dr Kate Green O’Leary – Investigating privacy perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of the inflammatory bowel disease online health communities.
Dr Madeleine Ellis – Detection of vulnerable communities in East Africa via novel data streams and dynamic stochastic block models.
Dr Roza Vasileva – Exploring the use of open data to support citizen-led initiatives for sustainable urban development in East Africa.
Dr Siyang Song – Modelling person-specific and multi-scale facial dynamics for automatic personality and depression analysis.

2015 Cohort – 8 alumni

Dr Andrew Moffat – Using English as a second language online: digital interactions and their implications for language learning and teaching.
Dr Judit Varga – Geocaching: tracing geotagged social media research using mixed methods.
Dr Neelima Sailaja – Understanding the challenges of using personal data in media experiences.
Dr Richard Ramchurn – Brain-controlled cinematic interactions.
Dr Rosa Lavelle-Hill – Big data psychology.
Dr Shalaka Kurup –Rail passenger knowledge and its impact on information requirements.
Dr Qing Li – An investigation into image-based indoor localization using deep learning.
Dr Ziyad Yehia – The VI Nav cards: a holistic approach to supporting the design of navigation aids for the blind and visually impaired.

2014 Cohort – 9 alumni

Dr Alexandra Young – A qualitative study of Internet use comparing the experiences of people with physical disabilities and early onset dementia.
Dr Gregor Engelmann – LU(S)TI in the global South: an empirical analysis of land use and socio-economic transport interaction in Tanzania using mobile network data.
Dr Iona Fitzpatrick – Exploring place through Twitter text: an investigation into the use of ambient data for furthering geographic understandings of cities.
Dr Matthew Voigts – Digital privacy and personal, social and civic agency: refugees’ experiences.
Dr Md Shadab Mashuk – Indoor Positioning as a Contribution to Building Occupant Modelling
Dr Obrien Sim – Smart packaging, engagement, and fast-moving consumer goods
Dr Pepita Barnard – Young adults’ considerations for whole genome sequencing.
Dr Tatiana Styliari – Digital identity at the movies: understanding and designing the contemporary cinema-going experience.
Dr Yitong Huang – Internet of Things enabled sedentary behaviour change in office workers: development and feasibility of a novel intervention (WorkMyWay).

2013 Cohort – 8 alumni

Dr Anna Clarke – Supporting pro-amateur composers using digital audio workstations.
Dr Christopher Ellis – An Exploration into the Application of Human-in-the-Loop Technologies for Personalised Music Recommendation.
Dr Georgiana Nica-Avram – Habit: an exploration of shopping behaviours from transactional data.
Dr Hanne Wagner – Engagement through play? The relationship between video games and political engagement.
Dr Martin Porcheron – Understanding conversation around technology use in casual-social settings.
Dr Panagiotis Koutsouras – Crafting content: the discovery of Minecraft’s invisible digital economy.
Dr Roma Patel – The maker of imaginary worlds: interactive theatre for early years.
Dr William Darler – Detecting and analysing changes in consumer behaviour during life events.

2012 Cohort – 10 alumni

Dr Dimitrios Darzentas – The lives of objects: designing for meaningful things.
Dr Horia Maior – Real-time physiological measure and feedback of workload.
Dr James Burnett – How can people’s spatial behaviour be used to dynamically lay out content on multi-user, interactive screens, and how does this dynamic layout affect people’s spatial behaviour?
Dr Lachlan Urquhart – Towards user centric regulation: exploring the interface between information technology law and human computer interaction.
Dr Liz Dowthwaite – Crowdfunding webcomics: the role of incentives and reciprocity in monetising free content.
Dr Peter Craigon – It is not down on any map; true places never are.’ – How do social maps produce truth and knowledge of place?
Dr Richard Brown – An investigation of performer embodiment and performative interaction on an augmented stage.
Dr Richard James – Does mobile gambling attract or create problem gamblers?
Dr Sam Howard – Electronic monitoring devices: necessary steps for their successful integration with current asthma care.
Dr William Knight – Can Hacktivism be understood as the performance of collective digital identity?

2011 Cohort – 9 alumni

Dr Chrisminder Hare – Designing for naturalistic decision-making.
Dr Daniel Ratzinger – The impact of university education upon digital start-ups.
Dr Jacob Chapman – Multi-agent stochastic simulation of occupants in buildings.
Dr James Sprinks – Designing task workflows to ensure the best scientific outcomes in citizen science.
Dr Lesley Fosh – Gifting personalised trajectories in museums and galleries.
Dr Martin Kruusimägi – Designing the user experience of a spatiotemporal automated home heating system: a holistic design and implementation process.
Dr Matthew Terrell – Utilising virtual communities for innovative consumer identification.
Dr Michaela Murphy (Nee Hoare) – “Lost in the noise”: DIY amateur music practice in a digital age.
Dr Paul Brindley – Generating vague geographic information through data mining of passive web data.

2010 Cohort – 15 alumni

Dr Abdur Rahman – The influence of social identity when digitally sharing location.
Dr Adrian Hazzard – Guidelines for composing locative soundtracks.
Dr Annika Hupfeld – Designing the social life of books and e-books.
Dr Anthony Brown – Domesticating home networks.
Dr Christopher Carter – Understanding the professionally risky behaviour of young adults in using social media.
Dr Edward Anstead – Many-screen viewing: collaborative consumption of television media across multiple devices.
Dr John Harvey – An economic anthropology of computer-mediated non-monetary exchange in England.
Dr Jianhua Shao – Strategic signals in the app economy: an empirical study of Google Play Store.
Dr Julian Rosser – Constrained modelling of building interiors
Dr Lorena Macnaughtan – Coping with complex environments: the case of digital healthcare technology producers.
Dr Mark Iliffe – The praxis of community mapping in developing countries.
Dr Mercedes Torres – Automatic image annotation applied to habitat classification.
Dr Min Zhang – An investigation of query-by-drawing image search on mobile devices.
Dr Olga Fernholz – Innovating for today while innovating for tomorrow: a test of innovation ambidexterity theory in a leading technology company.
Dr Paul Holmes – Towards a person-centric interface for information re-finding and sharing tasks.

2009 Cohort: 15 alumni

Dr Antony Cousin – A study of principles for Attendee Mobile Applications in venue-based experiences
Dr Claudia Krehl – In Search of a Multimodal Mobile Interface that Supports Multitasking on the Move
Dr Emily Webber – Strategy Differences in the use of Mobile Devices for Navigation
Dr Ewa Luger – Consent Reconsidered: Reframing ‘Consent’ for Ubiquitous Computing Systems
Dr Gilad Rosner – Identity management policy and unlinkability: a comparative case study of the US and Germany.
Dr Jimmy Chim – An interpretive investigation of trust and workflow in advertising communities.
Dr Jo Cranwell – Inhibition Training using Smartphone Technology
Dr Mark Dimond – Journey Extraction for Route Prediction
Dr Mark Selby – Experiential manufacturing: designing meaningful relationships between people, data and things.
Dr Mike Golembewski – Modelmaking and Process Activities, Artists Tools and Models of Art
Dr Rachel Jacobs – The artists’ footprint: investigating the distinct contributions of artists engaging the public with climate data.
Dr Ragad Al-lwihan – Investigating Methods of Capturing and Sharing Experience during Field Trip to Support Students Activity
Dr Robert Mitchelmore – The usefulness of case in plastic user interfaces.
Dr Sam Meek – Line of Sight Modelling for Query and Annotation of the Remote Landscape
Dr William Preston – Attack Points for Pedestrian Navigation in Augmented Reality

Thesis submissions:
Students that have submitted their PhD thesis and are awaiting viva dates/examination:

Chloe Jackson – Now where are we going? Mapping drivers’ changing navigational requirements in increasingly automated future driving contexts
Christian Tomakloe – The Quantified Traveller: Applying Self-tracking Towards More Worthwhile Rail Journeys
Callum Berger – Physiological Adaptive VR Horror Experiences
Ellie Colegate – Reducing Online Harms via Content Moderation? The Online Safety Act 2023 and the Everyday Interactions of Young People
Torran Semple – The Modern Problematisation of Fuel Poverty in England: Quantification, Obfuscation and Energy Transitions